Amazon Kindle Unlimited is subscription service for a monthly fee, users get access to over a million audiobooks, comics, e-books and magazines. There is lots of talk these days about customers fleeing the Kindle ecosystem and switching to another brand. Amazon does have a storied history of not supporting older e-readers, discontinuing popular services or removing books from your library on a whim.
Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited has a catalogue of 4 million titles/books and many audiobooks in its eclectic library. As for the Kindle Unlimited genres, readers can explore books from categories like riveting thrillers, teen/young, adult, sci-fi, romance, fantasy, etc.
What are the best alternatives to Kindle Unlimited? There are dozens out there, but are the best ones, that are worth your time.
Kobo Plus
Kobo Plus has 1.3 million + e-books and about 100,000 audiobooks. The service plan allows you to read, listen and explore as many books as you want for a particular price. It features books of various categories including the sorts like biography/memoir, comics, business, finances, fiction/non-fiction, mystery, suspension, romance/fantasy, and many more.
Kobo Plus, as of now, is accessible only in limited locations like the US, the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Portugal, and Australia. Kobo Plus enables reading e-books and listening to audiobooks through the Kobo Books app on iOS or Android devices, or a Kobo e-reader. A 30-day free trial is offered to test the service’s selection.
Kobo is unique in this field because they have different plans and prices. If a user just wants to read digital books, this is the cheapest plan. If someone perfers to listent o auduibooks, there is a standalone plan too. There is also a unufifed plan, that has access to both, but it costs more.
Kobo Plus lacks magazines in its subscription plans. They are rather more dedicated to e-books and audiobook-related content. Kindle Unlimited, on the other hand, offers access to everything, including news and magazines.
Scribd
Scribd has announced that it is pivoting away from the unlimited subscription model and moving to a credit-based system for their Everand reading platform in the United States. International expansion is slated for early 2025. This change will provide users with access to bestselling titles found on the New York Times bestseller list, and the Big 5 Publishers will simultaneously release new content on Everand, as they do on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Rakuten Kobo.
There will only be two tiers in the future from Everand: a Standard plan, priced at $11.99 monthly, for one premium title, and a Plus plan, priced at $16.99 monthly, for three titles. Both plans maintain unlimited access to magazines, podcasts, sheet music, and a small catalogue of e-books and audiobooks, including Everand Originals. The bestseller titles from prominent authors will only be able to be read if you subscribe to one of the new plans. Unlocked titles are yours to read or listen to as many times as you’d like for the duration of your subscription.
Existing customers are already subscribed to the old unlimited plan and will have to switch once it comes up for renewal in 2025. Scribd has stated they won’t change existing users yet, but the two-tier plan will be the only way for new people wanting to access new books. Once you switch to Standard or Plus, you cannot revert to a legacy subscription plan.
The credit system for audiobooks or ebooks from the Big Five publishers makes a lot of sense, considering new audiobooks cost anywhere from $25 to $45 each, and e-books continue to sell for $14.99 to $30.00; buying into the new Everand plan seems to be worth it. If you look at others in this space, Kindle Unlimited offers no big-name books on their platform. Audible exclusively deals with audiobooks and is the current market leader. Spotify is making a big push into audiobooks, but they don’t offer e-books. Kobo Plus offers an audiobook plan and an e-book plan separately, or you can subscribe to both for more money, but they also don’t have much of a selection of authors you have heard of.
One of the downfalls of the current Everand unlimited model is that if you are a power user and read/listen to a handful of titles per month, your account is throttled, so you only get access to a weaker catalogue. The new credit-based system provides users more value than the competition since it deals mainly with audiobooks and ebooks so that it will appeal to many users.
Audible
Audible is the largest player in the audiobooks game There’s also a sizable collection of exclusive Audible Originals and podcasts. With the new Audible Plus subscription launched last year, you get unlimited access to more than 11,000 titles and a 30 percent discount on everything in the Audible store. Upgrade to Premium Plus to get one credit per month to spend on an audiobook of your choice, but you get to keep whatever you buy even after your subscription ends.
The new Plus subscription makes Audible more affordable, and offers a more traditional subscription model where you can listen as much as you want but you do lose access when you stop paying. The pricey Premium Plus plan is the previous membership model, and you can also opt for a two credits per month plan.
ComiXology Unlimited
Comixology has just launched a digital comic subscription service in 2016 and is one of the only games in town if you like this medium. There are a multitude of publishers that are taking part in this new initiative, such as Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, BOOM! Studios, Dynamite Entertainment, Kodansha Comics, Oni Press, Valiant Entertainment, Archie Comics, Fantagraphics Books, Humanoids, Action Lab Entertainment, Aspen Comics, Zenescope Entertainment and more.
They have a 60 day free trial the program costs $5.99 per month, which is good if you like digital comics. You can subscribe by visiting comiXology.com/unlimited. ComiXology Unlimited has over 1,250 complete series available to read.
Libby
Libby is a free app where you can enjoy ebooks, digital audiobooks, and magazines from your public library. You can stream titles with Wi-Fi or mobile data, or download them for offline use and read anytime, anywhere. All you need to get started is a library card.
They have an app for Android and iOS. Kobo e-readers have built in support for Libby/Overdrive, so users can register for a card, enter it and browse/checkout and read, right on the e-reader, without the need for an internet browser. The Libby app gives you the option to send your ebooks to your preferred Kindle device.
Epic!
If you have a little one that you want to foster the love of reading, this is the larges platform dedicated to kids aged 12 and under, Epic has an interesting mix of content that includes more than 40,000 ebooks. There are some classics, a few entries from popular series, and books from big publishers like HarperCollins and Macmillan, including many educational books.
Storytel
Storytel is one of the best online book subscription services, praised for its audiobook selection. Originating from Sweden, Storytel has expanded its reach globally, providing subscribers with a vast library of audiobooks and ebooks. They expanded into the US with their acquisition of audiobooks.com.
With features like offline listening and reading, personalized recommendations, and the ability to switch seamlessly between reading the ebook version and listening to the audiobook, Storytel is one of the best book subscription apps. Its unique feature allows family members to have their own profiles under a single subscription, enhancing the user experience for all household members. The service is compatible with multiple platforms, ensuring accessibility at home or on the go.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.